These will be pure
and elementary republics, the sum of all which, taken together, composes
the State, and will make of the whole a true democracy as to the
business of the wards, which is that of nearest and daily concern.
The affairs of the larger sections, of counties, of States, and of
the Union, not admitting personal transaction by the people, will be
delegated to agents elected by themselves; and representation will thus
be substituted, where personal action becomes impracticable. Yet,
even over these representative organs, should they become corrupt and
perverted, the division into wards constituting the people, in their
wards, a regularly organized power, enables them by that organization
to crush, regularly and peaceably, the usurpations of their unfaithful
agents, and rescues them from the dreadful necessity of doing it
insurrectionally. In this way we shall be as republican as a large
society can be; and secure the continuance of purity in our government,
by the salutary, peaceable, and regular control of the people. No other
depositories of power have ever yet been found, which did not end in
converting to their own profit the earnings of those committed to their
charge. George the III., in execution of the trust confided to him, has,
within his own day, loaded the inhabitants of Great Britain with debts
equal to the whole fee-simple value of their island, and under pretext
of governing it, has alienated its whole soil to creditors who could
lend money to be lavished on priests, pensions, plunder, and perpetual
war.
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